Christmas Presents from the garden

Christmas Presents from the garden

I'm inching closer & closer to pressing send on my seed order for next year. (INCHING)

We've decided bulbs would be a great present for Mom & MIL this Christmas. Now I just have to pick from a huge variety of beautiful flowers!!

Mom loves poppies, and I collected seeds from my wild poppies this year to include with her present. I was thinking of also getting some double-poppies or other more fancy varieties. I also ran into these Egret Flowers, I feel like I'm being distracted by their beauty but I know that's something my mom would enjoy.

MIL I'm thinking of a winter indoor/summer outdoor flower. She had TONS of plants, so maybe something more for the garden would be better. I think she'd really like some lillies, but I can't decide what variety.

We're budget christmas-ers I'm thinking around $20 is a good amount to spend on each.

Marlingardener wrote:Vanessa,Would you include me on your Christmas list? Giving plants/seeds is a great idea. I'm all for any gift that doesn't have to be dusted!We just sent two rose bushes to my grandniece for a wedding present. Turns out her new hubby is an avid gardener, and it was the best present they got! I'm sure your Christmas gifts will be the same.

I love the part where you say "I'm all for any gift that doesn't have to be dusted!" That is perfect!

Nes, last Valentines Day, my kids and I made 1" Valentine hearts out of pink crinkle paper tissue streamers glued together with wildflower seeds sandwiched in between. They can be planted, hearts and all, in soil and the tissues will decompose and the seeds will grow.

A number of people are going to get gifts from my garden this year including sets of herbs/teas, lavender jelly (I hope, I've never done it before, but I have enough lavender this year to try), lavender sachets ....

Last year I did seed balls as a gift to my parents. But I didn't actually give them to them at christmas as the gift required way too much explaining and direction, so I gave it to them earlier or later--I can't remember!

The gift from those seed balls was: poppies (hope they made more seed to continue the cycle), cabbage or kale, mustard greens, arugula, some more flowers I don't know what they were. And also, I've been harvesting the edibles to give to my rabbit. Which is a huge bonus as she hates store-bought greens (so spoiled!), and I didn't plant a fall garden.

Christmas presents from the garden

Fri Oct 16, 2009 4:36 pm

Sorry Nes. I forgot this was here and started my own thread (great minds and all ) So I'm combining them here and deleting the other one so we don't have two different Christmas presents threads going.

It occurred to me that now would be a good time to be sharing our ideas for christmas presents from the garden.

homemade tea bags? (or loose teas of course, but I thought it would be cool if I could find fillable tea bags) PS I did a quick search and found several places selling fillable tea bags. Here's just the first one on the list: http://www.plymouthtea.com/tepafiteaba.html

lavender or other plants, potted up into pretty pots

sachets

essential oils and products made with them (lotions, etc)

lavender and other jellies, jams, preserves

wreaths

neck, shoulder, lap warmers (depending on size and shape). You've probably seen these in the catalogs. Take some kind of pouch, fill it with rice, flaxseed, and herbs and seal. Sew a cover for it out of chenille or terrycloth or something. Then they can be popped in the microwave to warm up. Very soothing. I thought I could do these home made with my homegrown herbs.

if you are into candlemaking you can put lavender or other pretty sprigs in the candles

I saw some very pretty painted stones, nicer done than the old Pet Rock thing.

Miniature garden in a pot. Take a wide shallow flower pot and plant it with low growing stuff and add accessories (mini paths, fences, arch, birdbath etc) to make it look like a little garden (is this a different take on bonsai? )

Christmas presents

Fri Oct 16, 2009 4:39 pm

This was from petalfuzz. In this combining threads process, I'm not quite sure how to attach her post from the other thread into this one so I'm just copying it in, but unfortunately then it isn't attributed to her. Sorry petalfuzz -- these are good ideas!

Those are great ideas!

I made sure to can up 1/2 pints for my parents and sister of homemade salsa. I think they're getting 5 different kinds. I could turn this into a gift basket very easy with a large basket, some shredded paper, and maybe a gourmet bag of chips or two. Maybe even some kind of fancy spoon and some hard cheese.

In the past I've given those quart jar baking mixes. Just layer in the ingredients in a quart jar and type out the baking instructions. It'd be easy to include dried fruits from the garden if you have any. Biscuits, scones, cookies, quick breads, etc. Very high on the gift "points" and very little cost.

Also flavored vinegars, oils or alcohol would be great too, if your intended has use for such things. Like chili oil, or pepper vodka, or anything you can think of. We had a thread on here about fruit vinegars this year I think._________________Carolyn Zone 5b; gardening sophomore

I'm probably going to make some ginger beer for a few gifts. I have a few small hands of my homegrown ginger, but may buy some more.

Melomel or a fruit augmented mead is always nice, too.

Thing with any homebrew is that some people are very sensitive to the yeasts in it. Very few, actually, but anyone who says their stomachs are upset easily doesn't get any homebrew from me.

I usually do some kitchen mixes like rubs for BBQ or "mix in a jar" type things.

Another garden related thing: make wreaths from pinecones and acorns, magnolia pods, sweetgum balls, etc. Make fire starters from pinecones with a few old candle stubs.

I've done those, but one I've always wanted to try are the treated pine cones with mineral salts that burn a different color. I think potassium from no sodium salt blends will give the purple color.

I also have some crotons I've rooted from trimmings that will probably be the centers of some planted bowls I'll do with other seasonal plants. Generally if I keep it to red and white, it looks Christmasy. So I've done red geraniums surrounded by white petunias, or white mums with red coleus.

I ordered myself a bunch of fillable tea bags. Looked up lots of nice herbal tea recipes. So I think some people will get nice little hand painted wooden boxes (my hands ) filled with a variety sampler of my homemade herbal tea bags. You can get the unfinished wooden boxes pretty cheap at craft stores.

rainbowgardener wrote:I ordered myself a bunch of fillable tea bags. Looked up lots of nice herbal tea recipes. So I think some people will get nice little hand painted wooden boxes (my hands ) filled with a variety sampler of my homemade herbal tea bags. You can get the unfinished wooden boxes pretty cheap at craft stores.

I was just thinking of doing this for next year! Do you have a link to some good herbal tea recipes? I was thinking of putting the dried herbs in separate containers and printing out recipes that use a few of each herb: such as 1 tsp mint plus 1/2 tsp lavender, steep for 5 mins, etc. Then the receiver could experiment with custom blends as well.

petalfuzz wrote:And also, I've been harvesting the edibles to give to my rabbit. Which is a huge bonus as she hates store-bought greens (so spoiled!), and I didn't plant a fall garden.

I about choked when I read this

About which part? The harvesting or the spoiled rabbit? Well, when you love your pet and you go to the store and pick out a beautiful fresh head of endive or escarole, and then give it to your rabbit, and then she looks at you like you are starving her and she doesn't eat it but lets it wilt into garbage, it is both wise and economical to scavenge for wild greens wherever you can every week from the first dandelion bloom to the last!